The Fujifilm XF10 ($499.95) may not be the direct successor to the discontinued X70 in model name, but it certainly is in spirit.
Like the X70, the XF10 is a pocket-friendly camera with an APS-C image sensor, the size found in many SLRs and mirrorless cameras.
Its image quality is excellent, thanks to a sharp wide-angle lens and a class-leading image sensor.
But performance is a bit spotty, with focus slower than what we're used to seeing in a modern camera, and an image processor that doesn't include some of our favorite Fujifilm profiles.
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Gorgeous Finish
The XF10 is easily one of the best-looking cameras on sale today, at least if you buy it in the gold finish we received for review.
The body is metal, with a finish to match.
Its contrasted by a brown leatherette, with a pattern that reminds me of alligator leather.
Fujfilm also markets the XF10 with a black finish, which isn't as head-turning, but remains classy.
The camera is eminently pocketable.
It measures 2.5 by 4.4 by 1.6 inches (HWD) and weighs 9.9 ounces.
A wrist strap is included, and it's much nicer than the run-of-the-mill straps included with most compact cameras.
The strap is a quarter-inch wide, with soft leatherette on the exterior and black felt lining its interior.
The lens is an 18.5mm f/2.8 prime—there's no zoom capability.
When paired with the 24MP APS-C image sensor, it captures photos with an angle of view similar to that of a 28mm full-frame system.
This is comparable with what many smartphones capture—although flagships have migrated to a slightly wider design, in the 24mm range, for the most part.
The close-up focus is decent—the lens can lock on as close as 3.9 inches—it's not the most dramatic macro, but you can still lock in on the tiny details.
The 28mm field of view is a popular one for many photographers—there's a reason smartphones use it.
The XF10 isn't the only enthusiast camera with it either.
The Ricoh GR II uses a similar lens, backed by an image sensor that's the same size, but not as dense with pixels at 16MP.
The GR II is still available, but is getting up there in age, as its sensor and lens date back to the first APS-C GR, released in 2013.
Ricoh has a GR III coming in 2019, which ups the sensor to 24MP and includes image stabilization, a feature missing in the XF10.
The body is small, so there aren't a slew of control buttons and dials, but there are enough.
A manual focus ring surrounds the lens, but it can be reprogrammed to scroll through film simulation modes, set the white balance, adjust ISO, or perform a few other sundry functions.
There's a programmable Fn button on the top, along with the Mode dial, dual control dials, and the On/Off button.
The shutter is surrounded by the front dial, and it's one ergonomic aspect that I don't love.
It's a little cramped on top, so the small diameter afforded to the dial doesn't make it quite as comfortable to turn as the larger rear dial, which is assigned to shutter control or EV adjustment, depending on your shooting mode.
The Drive/Delete and Play buttons are located at the top center, just above the LCD.
To the right, nestled at the edge of the rear thumb rest, is the Q button, which activates an on-screen menu to quickly adjust settings.
Despite sporting a touch screen, the Q menu isn't navigable via touch.
Above Q is an unlabeled black button, Fn2, which is as programmable as the top Fn button.
The XF10 eschews the expected four-way control pad, replacing it with a tiny joystick to fit in the confines of the small frame.
It's what you'll use to navigate through the Q menu, while using the rear dial to adjust settings in each pane.
Below the joystick you'll find the Menu and Display/Back buttons.
It's easy to customize the Q menu, Fn button, or rear joystick function—just hold the control you want to change in for a couple seconds and a menu will pop up on the screen, allowing you to modify its function.
There's no EVF or hot shoe, so you can't even mount a fixed optical viewfinder.
You're limited to using the 3-inch, 1,040k-dot LCD as your viewfinder.
Thankfully it's a sharp, bright screen, with 11 levels of brightness adjustment available via the Q menu.
And while menu navigation isn't available via touch, you can tap to choose the focus point or to focus and capture an image, depending on which focus mode you're using.
There are some additional touch control gestures available while shooting.
You can swipe down to customize the function of the front control ring, to the right to adjust face detection settings, to the left to switch to a square crop, and up to turn on Snap shooting.
This is Fujifilm's take on the Snap Focus function available in the Ricoh GR series.
It stops down the lens to f/8 and switches to a preset focus distance—6.5 feet (2 meters) and 26 feet (8 meters) are available.
I like having the function available, but find that the implementation isn't as slick as what the GR and GR II do—with those cameras, a quick, full press of the shutter sets the lens to its Snap Focus position, making it possible to switch between autofocus and the preset Snap distance without having to adjust any sort of settings.
With the XF10 you'll need to decide to use the Snap setting before making an image, taking away its real benefit—lag free, in-focus capture of the most fleeting of candid moments.
Travel-Friendly
The XF10 includes Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, so you can connect it to an Android or iOS device for remote control and image transfer.
You'll need to download the Fujifilm Camera Remote app to get started, and go through a painless setup process.
Once you've got it going you can transfer images to your phone easily, although you might have to tell your phone to change Wi-Fi networks to the one generated by the XF10 to make things work.
Transfers via Bluetooth, like what Nikon does with its SnapBridge Wi-Fi system, aren't an option, but Bluetooth can add GPS data to photos and set the XF10's clock, based on information acquired from your phone's GPS system.
The battery is rated for about 330 shots by CIPA, which should get you through the day without too much worry.
Charging is available via micro USB, so you can always top off the battery using an external battery pack when out and out and about.
There's also a micro HDMI output port and an SD memory card slot.
Adequate Autofocus
The XF10 isn't set to win any races.
It's rather slow to take a shot after powering on, taking a good 3.4 seconds to focus and snap a photo after pressing the On button.
The autofocus system takes about 0.2-second to lock focus in bright light, but slows to about 0.6-second in dim conditions.
There are a few different focus modes available.
By default the camera selects the focus point automatically, which works well for most shots.
If you like to photograph people, it's a good idea to turn Face Detection on when using the wide area.
There are a few different options, including the ability to detect either the left or right eye of your subject, but I found leaving both Face and Eye Detection to Auto netted good results.
If you have trouble getting the XF10 to lock on to what you want it to, you can simply tap the rear screen and the camera will focus on the region you choose and fire a shot.
You can turn this behavior off if you'd like, though I found it useful.
I do wish there was an option to tap to select the focus, and still use the physical shutter to snap a shot.
But if you want the XF10 to act like that, you need to change the focus mode.
Changing focus is easy enough to do—jump into the Q menu and select one of the other focus modes.
Single Point and Zone are available, offering a flexible spot in two sizes that can be moved around the frame using the rear stick or by tapping.
In these modes you can choose whether to focus and fire when tapping the rear LCD (Shot), to focus only (AF), or to simply move the focus point without adjusting the lens (Area).
The icon to change these settings is on the top right corner of the LCD and is adjustable via touch.
There is also an ALL setting available in the focus mode selection bank of the Q menu.
When this is turned on you can switch between the Single Point, Wide, and Zone settings by pressing in the rear joystick and turning the rear command dial.
If you find yourself changing the focus mode frequently it is a useful tool.
Continuous drive and AF-C are available, but this is not a camera for tracking fast action.
The wide-angle field of view means you won't be snapping shots of wildlife or sports, unless you can get up close and personal.
Here the burst shooting is better suited for subjects with more side-to-side motion, as the camera doesn't have to adjust its focus as much or as quickly as it would with subjects moving toward or away from the lens.
The XF10 did not do well in our continuous shooting test, which stresses a camera by firing on a closely framed target that moves toward and away from the lens, netting mostly misfocused shots.
I believe the speed of the lens motor plays a big part—you can see and feel the lens moving in and out when focusing in AF-C mode.
If you're interested in a small camera that does a better job with action, look at the Sony RX100 VI, which sports a zoom lens and 24fps Raw capture with phase detect focus tracking.
The camera shoots fairly quickly, at 6fps, but the shooting buffer is limited if you work in Raw format.
It can only keep up the pace for five Raw or Raw+JPG shots.
If you shoot in JPG the buffer extends to 15 shots, just shy of three seconds of action in a full burst.
There is also a 15fps capture mode, utilizing the XF10's video engine, but it limits resolution to 8MP and is only good for one second of capture at a time.
The camera supports extracting individual frames from these 1-second clips, but if you offload your memory card without extracting frames first, you'll find them saved inside a 4K video file rather than as JPG images.
Overall, I found the XF10's focus system and speed to be absolutely adequate for the type of images most photographers will want to make with this camera.
Street scenes, environmental portraits, and macro shots are no problem.
Heck, you can keep up with sports action from the stands.
But if I was shooting basketball from the baseline I'd grab a different camera.
An SLR Sensor in Your Pocket
The XF10's big feature is its image sensor, an APS-C chip with 24MP of resolution.
It's the same size and pixel density that you'll find in interchangeable lens cameras like the Nikon D5600 and Sony a6000.
The sensor is a standard Bayer design, which is a bit of a surprise—Fujifilm typically uses its proprietary X-Trans color technology, but not here.
The practical result is that some of Fujfilm's JPG color profiles, available in X-Trans cameras, aren't available.
You don't get the Acros black-and-white look, for instance, nor film grain.
You do get Provia, Velvia, Classic Chrome, and regular black-and-white looks, the latter with a simulated color filter option, any of which can be applied to stills or video.
I used Imatest to check the quality of the lens and sensor.
At f/2.8 the lens resolves 2,763 lines on a center-weighted sharpness test.
It's an excellent result for a 24MP camera, and resolution is strong from center to edge.
The lens is even better at f/4 (2,968 lines) and f/5.6 (2,938 lines).
It starts to drop at f/8 (2,859 lines), but continues to deliver sharp photos at f/11 (2,703 lines).
You can also shoot at f/16, but the resolution drops a bit (2,314 lines) at the minimum f/16 setting.
Image noise is well controlled.
The XF10 keeps it under 1.5 percent through ISO 6400, and shows about 1.7 percent at ISO 12800—the top setting at which both Raw and JPG capture are available.
A close look at images from our test scene shows excellent quality through ISO 1600 when shooting in JPG format.
At ISO 3200 and 6400 there is some very slight smudging of fine detail.
The blur increases at ISO 12800, and is more of a concern at the top ISO 25600 and 51200 settings.
Raw capture tops out at ISO 12800.
When pushing the camera that far you'll notice some grain, but detail is still quite good.
Raw output shows very strong detail and not a lot of noise through ISO 1600.
I don't mind a grainy look, and am happy with the results I saw from the XF10 when shooting Raw photos at ISO 3200 and above.
Video often seems like an afterthought with Fujifilm cameras.
The lack of a Record button certainly puts the XF10 in that bucket.
To switch to video you need change the Drive mode to Movie, which isn't conducive to capturing quick, candid video clips.
Despite having a very customizable interface, you can't set the Fn button on top to start and stop videos.
You can shoot in 4K, but only at 15fps, which isn't useful unless you want a choppy, silent movie look.
For smooth video you are limited to 720p or 1080p at your choice of 23.98, 24, 50, or 59.94fps settings—30fps is notably absent, which can be a concern when recording video in questionable light, as the camera will need to use a shorter shutter speed to record at 60fps than for 30fps.
The 1080p quality is average, but in no way outstanding.
Details are a bit soft, and there's no sort of optical stabilization included, so handheld footage is a little shaky.
The focus system can detract from video as well.
Everything is fine if the camera doesn't detect an out-of-focus scene, but if it does there is a bit of wobble as the camera adjusts the lens to match subject movement.
AF-C is the only autofocus mode available for video.
There is a 2.5mm input for an external microphone, but no shoe or other way to mount one on the camera.
You'll need to add a bracket or another contraption to mount a microphone.
The Stylish Pocket Camera
The Fujifilm XF10 is an appealing camera to the right type of photographer.
If you had previously been a customer of the Ricoh GR series, or a fan of Fujifilm's own X70, you'll understand its appeal immediately.
It packs SLR image quality into a truly pocket-friendly form factor, and boasts an extremely sharp wide-angle lens.
It does sacrifice some versatility to get there.
The 28mm-equivalent lens is a good match...
